Fifty-five different lineups in 65 games.

A starting rotation of five pitchers that's amassed one win for themselves in 25 games.

An 11-game losing streak.

Nine road wins in 34 games.

A total of 210 runs scored, an average of 3.4 per game.

Pick any of the above numbers. None are pretty. All are statistics surrounding the 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates.

There is one number far worse — and what should be of utmost concern — to Pirates' ownership: 517,015.

That was the Pirates' home attendance figure prior to the current homestand — and people didn't exactly flood the turnstiles to see the Chicago White Sox.

Only one major league team — the Cleveland Indians — has drawn fewer fans at home than the Pirates. Even the Florida Marlins, whose fans don't even care about baseball, have drawn more.

So what do the Pirates do?

Decide to call up Pedro Alvarez after last Tuesday's game and put him in the starting lineup the following night.

No anticipation. No build-up. No formal announcement. No nothing.

The Alvarez promotion was totally botched.

When you're losing games because you're on the ground floor of trying to build a winner from scratch, you need to promote your most attractive and high-profile building block.

All due respect to Andrew McCutchen's hot start, Alvarez is the Pirates' biggest prospect since Barry Bonds. This organization should have pronounced his arrival days before it happened.

Instead, Alvarez debuts in front of 15,000 fans on a beautiful evening.

Pathetic.

Granted, it's easier to do so with a starting pitcher, but the Washington Nationals carefully engineered the debut of Stephen Strasburg and gave their fans the opportunity to pack the place.

Even with notice, the Pirates would not have sold out PNC Park for Alvarez's first game.

The guess here is they could have drawn 30,000, however.

And instead of allowing the lefthand-hitting Alvarez to debut against right-hander Freddy Garcia Tuesday night, the Pirates wait until Wednesday and put him in against John Danks, one of the toughest lefties in the American League.

Can we put some thought into this, please?

The Pirates may go on to lose 100 games this year and that's OK, given the fact they are putting some viable young prospects on the field with plenty of potential for the first time in years.

But people are sick of losing baseball in Pittsburgh.

When a ballpark as beautiful as PNC Park attracts fewer than 20,000 per game on average, there's a tell-tale sign of that.

So when you've got something good to present to the people, do it right.

Baseball fans should have known at least three days ahead of time when Pedro Alvarez was going to be donning a Pirate uniform for the first time.

Why keep it a secret — especially when it's no secret that fewer and fewer folks are caring about this team.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle